Information producers and consumer exchange content items (e.g., web pages) in networked environments, such as over the Internet. When exchanging content items, it is useful to encode information into a link to a given content item such that an information producer, such as an advertiser, may obtain information regarding the request or selection of the given content item by an information consumer, such as a user of a personal computer browsing web pages on the Internet. Information producers, or a third party serving a content item that an information producer creates, may encode information to track the utilization of the content item. The process of encoding information into a link to a given content obviates the need to execute time consuming database lookups for every client action; information is retrieved from a database once and then encoded into the link to make the information available.
Information encoded into a link for a given content item, however, has become an unwieldy process due to the large amount of information encoded into such links. Accordingly, there is a need for systems and methods that reduce the size or amount of information encoded into a link to a given content item without eliminating an substantive information encoded into a give link.